Research On The Structure Of High School Biology Teachers’ Pedagogical Content Knowledge

Teachers play a very important role during the new curriculum reform. They are the executor of the teaching and education policy, the interpreter of curriculum. So the curriculum idea, the professional knowledge and teaching skills of teachers are all needed to update and perfect. Teachers’knowledge is an important part of the professional development of teachers. It has to be improved and developed. Pedagogical Content Knowledge is a unique knowledge during the teaching activities. It is a special knowledge that can help students understand the specific content more easily. Teachers need to adjust, organize, express and present the content according to characteristics of the students. The core connotation of PCK is to realize the disciplinary knowledge transformation into easier forms to learn. The core factor is to realize the conversion based on students. Teachers’PCK affect the classroom teaching directly and impact to teachers’ specialization level, at the same time it can impress the advance of new curriculum reform.This study was based on the Constructivism theory, the Multiple Intelligences theory, the Developmental of Psychology theory and the Conceptual Change theory. Combining previous conclusions of PCK, this research summarized the six elements of PCK:the Overarching Concept of Teaching Objective, Knowledge of Biology, Knowledge of Biology Contents’ Organization, Knowledge of Students’ Understanding, Knowledge of Feedback, Knowledge of Instructional Strategies. Through classroom observation, case study and interview of biology teachers who come from two key high schools from Guilin and their16section daily biology classes, this research tried to summarize the structure of high school biology teachers’ PCK. At the same time the research combined with high school biology subject characteristics and the new curriculum standard of biology in Senior High School. The PCK of Biology teachers included:1.The Overarching Concept of Teaching Objective:it contains the biological view and the teaching objective. Based on the biological view of a comprehensive understanding of the nature of biology, the research object and value, teaching objective of biology teacher is that the students gain not only the biological knowledge and biological methods but also the consciousness of biology, the thinking ability and the social sense of responsibility through the study of biology;2. Knowledge of Biology:it contains basic biological knowledge, core biological knowledge and process knowledge;3. Knowledge of Biology Contents’ Organization:biological teachers select, complement, organize and arrange the teaching material content properly according to the prior knowledge and cognitive features. By strengthening the key knowledge, decomposing the difficult knowledge, transforming the easily wrong points can realize the lower starting point, smaller slope and gradually deepen, expand and migrate the knowledge;4. Knowledge of Students’ Understanding:when the teachers design tasks they should accord to the knowledge base of students. Pointing at the misinterpreted and intricate knowledge, they choose the representation that can help the students understand knowledge;5. Knowledge of Feedback:it includes learning feedback to teach and teaching feedback to learn, the learning feedback to teach is that teachers adjust their teaching according to students’ reaction. Teaching feedback to learn is that teachers adopt the content feedback, theme feedback and form feedback. The students can get a positive evaluation from the feedback of their teachers. Through heuristic models of teaching can stimulate interest and motivation of biology learning;6. Knowledge of Instructional Strategies:teachers use different ways to characterize, organize and present knowledge in order to promote students to understand the specific knowledge of biological concepts, principles and laws;The research also made investigation of Students’ evaluation of their teachers’ PCK. SPSS19.0was used to make a difference analysis of data. The research tried to look for the students’evaluation of novice and experienced teachers’ PCK. The results of the survey showed that:the present station of the biological teacher’ PCK is in the superior degree.Knowledge of Biology, Knowledge of Biology Contents’ Organization, Knowledge of Students’ Understanding, Knowledge of Feedback, Knowledge of Instructional Strategies showed significant differences between the novice and experienced teachers, and the score of novice teachers were higher than experienced teachers just in the Knowledge of Feedback. The specific differences between the novice and experienced teachers manifested in:Whether teachers possess the knowledge system of Biology. Whether teachers can get the problem across to students by the way that students can understand. Whether teachers do proper selection, supplement, organization and arrangement of biological materials content according to the basic knowledge of students.Whether teachers know the fallibility point and the difficulty when the students understand the biological knowledge. Whether teachers take proper teaching strategies for teaching the fallibility points and difficulties. Whether teachers decompose the difficulties, translate the fallibility points, strengthen the emphases. Whether teachers adjust the teaching according to the reflections of students in time.Whether teachers can make the students get positive evaluation.According to conclusion of the research, there are some suggestions to the high school biology teachers to improve their PCK.1.Pre-service training:when they were normal school students they should improve the knowledge of Biology and basic skills of teaching.2.In-service development:teachers should recreate the case of excellent teachings and carry on teaching reconsidering actively after classes. At the same time teachers should take an active part in teaching activities and the different structure for the same lesson in order to promote the PCK of high school biology teachers.3. Post-profession training:teacher-trainers should pay attention to the practice of training, raore professional training should close to the practice of teaching with cases of teaching, and make a deep analysis of the design of the typical teaching cases.There should be a combined training that includes lecture of expert, example demonstration, task-driving and exchange and seminar.The result of research may be able to provide a reference for the Normal University who carry on the pre-service training and the educational workers who carry on the post-profession training. At the same time it can provide references to the self-development and self-improvement of in-service teachers.